FALL RIVER — Police said a Fall River man made off with $28 in cash after he brandished a folding knife at a Tedeschi’s convenience store clerk early Tuesday morning.

After being arraigned Wednesday, the suspect, David M. DeFrancesco, 29, of 182 Quequechan St., was ordered held on $5,000 cash bail, according to court documents.

Fall River police officers who tracked him to a woman’s apartment said they found DeFrancesco hiding inside a closet. While interviewed at the police station, detectives said DeFrancesco confessed to robbing the Tedeschi’s at 1237 Pleasant St. because he wanted money to buy drugs, according to police reports.

The clerk also identified DeFrancesco as the armed suspect who entered the store just before 2:30 a.m. Tuesday. The clerk said DeFrancesco waited until another customer left before he approached the counter, pulled out a small folding knife and demanded money. After taking the cash, the suspect fled the store, ran across the street and jumped over a fence into a backyard, witnesses said.

The clerk told Fall River police Officer Nicholas Magan that the suspect had been inside the store about an hour earlier, and that he was wearing a NASCAR-style jacket with the M&M’s logo and drove a white sedan, according to court records.

Magan and Fall River police Sgt. Gill Costa viewed the store’s surveillance footage and noticed a white Nissan Maxima with a sunroof and front-end damage. Magan also followed footprints in the snow from the convenience store’s parking lot to the backyard of 182 Quequechan St., where he and other officers spotted a 1999 Nissan Maxima parked, according to court documents.

The officers tracked the vehicle to the home of DeFrancesco’s girlfriend, who allowed the police to search her second-floor apartment. Costa found DeFrancesco curled up on the bottom of a closet, and also spotted a NASCAR-style jacket with an M&M’s logo inside the room, according to court documents.

Police also seized $28 in cash from DeFrancesco’s pants pocket, as well as a folding knife that DeFrancesco said he used in the robbery. DeFrancesco told police he had a “spur of the moment” decision to rob Tedeschi’s because he needed money to buy drugs, according to court records.

DeFrancesco, who was arrested and charged with armed robbery, also had his bail revoked from a pending 2012 assault and battery case in Fall River District Court. He will be held without bail for the next 60 days, after which he will then be held on the $5,000 cash bail on his new case.